Salary Converter (Hourly to Annual)
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual from any one of them, with the 2,080-hour shortcut shown against the hours you actually work.
Converting from hourly
Hours a week 37.50
Weeks a year 48.00
Hours a year 1,800, against the 2,080 convention
Annual $75,600.00
Monthly $6,300.00
Four-weekly $5,799.45
Weekly $1,575.00
Daily, 8 hours $336.00
Hourly $42.0000
The 2,080-hour shortcut
hourly by convention $36.3462
hourly from your hours $42.0000
the difference $5.6538 an hour, 15.6%
why the convention assumes 52 paid weeks and you are working 48.00
What an employee costs
salary $75,600.00
employer overhead at 24% $18,144.00
total cost $93,744.00
cost an hour worked $52.0800
which is why a contractor rate equal to a salary rate leaves the contractor worse off
If the hours change
30.0 hours a week $52.5000 an hour
35.0 hours a week $45.0000 an hour
37.5 hours a week $42.0000 an hour ← yours
40.0 hours a week $39.3750 an hour
45.0 hours a week $35.0000 an hour
The 2,080-hour convention is forty hours for fifty-two weeks and it
assumes every week is paid. On 37.50 hours over 48.00 weeks the real
figure is 1,800 hours, so the hourly equivalent is $42.0000 rather than
$36.3462.
For an hourly worker, unpaid time off is the whole difference. Four
weeks off is 1,920 hours rather than 2,080, so the same hourly rate is a
salary nine percent lower than the shortcut implies, and that is before
any sick day.
Monthly is annual over twelve, and four-weekly is not the same thing.
Thirteen four-weekly payments a year come to slightly more than twelve
monthly ones for the same annual salary, which is why the two figures
above differ and why a payroll change between them needs care.
At 24% overhead the employee costs $93,744.00 rather than $75,600.00.
Employer taxes, pension, insurance and equipment are real costs that
never appear on a payslip, which is why a contractor charging the
salary-equivalent hourly rate ends up worse off than the employee.
A contractor needs more than the salary-equivalent rate, not the same.
No paid holiday, no sick pay, no pension contribution, unbillable time
between contracts, and their own taxes and insurance: the usual loading
is 1.3 to 1.5 times, and the freelance rate calculator on this site
works it out properly.
Overtime, bonuses and commission are not in this. They change the annual
figure and not the arithmetic, and an hourly rate derived from a salary
that included a bonus overstates the base.
This is gross throughout. Tax, national insurance and pension deductions
vary by jurisdiction and by personal circumstances, and any calculator
claiming to give a net figure without asking a dozen questions is
guessing.
Output is valid and updates as you type.
Fix the highlighted fields to update the output.
The shortcut is 2,080 hours: forty hours, fifty-two weeks. It assumes every week of the year is paid, which is true for a salaried employee with paid holiday and false for anybody paid by the hour who takes time off.
Somebody on 37.5 hours over 48 working weeks works 1,800 hours. At $42 an hour that is $75,600 a year, where the 2,080-hour shortcut would have called the same salary $36.35 an hour: a 15.6 percent difference, which is the holiday nobody is paying for.
Both figures are shown, and so is the one nobody mentions: what an employee costs, which is the salary plus employer taxes, pension, insurance and equipment.
How to use
- Pick what you are converting from and put the amount in.
- Set the hours a week and the weeks a year. Subtract unpaid holiday from the weeks.
- Add employer overhead to see the real cost of the role.
Example
$42 an hour, 37.5 hours a week, 48 weeks a year:
Hours a year 1,800, against the 2,080 convention
Annual $75,600.00
Monthly $6,300.00
Four-weekly $5,799.45
Weekly $1,575.00
Daily, 8 hours $336.00
Hourly $42.0000
The 2,080-hour shortcut
hourly by convention $36.3462
hourly from your hours $42.0000
the difference $5.6538 an hour, 15.6%
why the convention assumes 52 paid weeks and you are working 48.00
What an employee costs
salary $75,600.00
employer overhead at 24% $18,144.00
total cost $93,744.00
cost an hour worked $52.0800Pitfalls
2,080 hours assumes paid holiday. For an hourly worker taking four weeks off it is 1,920, and the same hourly rate then corresponds to a salary nine percent lower than the shortcut implies. Sick days make it worse.
Monthly and four-weekly are different. Thirteen four-weekly payments come to slightly more than twelve monthly ones for the same annual salary, which is why the two figures differ above and why changing a payroll from one to the other needs care.
A salary is not what an employee costs. Employer taxes, pension contributions, insurance and equipment commonly add 20 to 30 percent, and none of it appears on the payslip. That is the number to compare a contractor against.
A contractor needs more than the salary-equivalent rate. No paid holiday, no sick pay, no pension, unbilled time between contracts, and their own taxes: the usual loading is 1.3 to 1.5 times the employee equivalent. The freelance hourly rate calculator on this site works that out properly.
Overtime and bonuses distort the conversion. An hourly rate derived from a salary that included a bonus overstates the base. Convert the base, then add the variable pay separately.
Everything here is gross. Tax, national insurance and pension deductions depend on jurisdiction and personal circumstances, and any calculator that produces a net figure without asking a dozen questions is guessing.
Part-year work is not a pro-rata salary. Six months at a rate is half the annual figure only if the weeks and hours match; a summer contract with long hours can pay more per week and less per year than either figure suggests.
Compatibility
Arithmetic in the browser: nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored.
The conversion runs through an annual figure whichever direction you start from, so it round trips: an hourly rate converted up and back gives the same number, which the test suite checks. Daily assumes an eight-hour day, and four-weekly is the annual figure divided by 365 and multiplied by 28, which is how a four-weekly payroll actually works.
The 2,080-hour comparison is always shown, along with the reason the two differ in your case: fewer weeks, different hours, or neither.
Employer overhead is applied as a percentage of salary, which is the usual rough approach. The precise figure depends on jurisdiction: employer social contributions alone range from a few percent to over thirty, so the default here is a middle estimate rather than a rule.